Issue Aug 2008: Table of Contents

Andrew Hoskins, Barry Richards, and Philip Seib
Editors' note

The accidental nation
Quil Lawrence
BBC World Service

In 1991 the US-led effort to evict the Iraqi Army from Kuwait produced many unintended consequences. Perhaps the most significant and the least noticed was the creation of a de facto Kurdish state in northern Iraq. The Kurdish safe haven, which was the first United Nations-approved humanitarian intervention against the will of a sovereign state, would never have come to pass without worldwide media pressure on the USA and Europe to do something about Saddam Hussein's brutal repression of the Kurdish rebellion against his regime. The Kurds did with press coverage what they had failed to achieve in decades of armed struggle. This article is an adaptation from Invisible Nation: How the Kurds' Quest for Statehood is Shaping Iraq and the Middle East, published by Walker & Company, New York, April 2008.

Key Words: Barzani • humanitarian intervention • Iraq • Kurds • Talabani

Uploading dissonance: YouTube and the US occupation of Iraq
Christian Christensen
Karlstad University, Sweden, christian.christensen@kau.se

The purpose of this article is to analyze the use of YouTube by the US military for the spreading of messages and information regarding their presence in Iraq, and, at the same time, to examine the presence on the same YouTube system of a large number of video clips showing members of the US military engaged in violent, anti-social activities. That these juxtaposing images of coalition forces in Iraq exist on the same video-sharing forum forces us to reconsider traditional notions of how `propaganda' is produced, distributed and received. In addition, the presence of dissonant material on video-sharing sites such as YouTube should lead us to consider the multi-faceted nature of such sites. This article is intended as a first step toward reconsidering the nature of propaganda in an era of online media, open-access video-sharing and simplified production and distribution.

Key Words: media • military • propaganda • public diplomacy • video-sharing • war • YouTube

Mission statehood: portraits of the second Palestinian intifada in US news media
Amani Ismail
California State University Northridge, USA, amani.ismail@csun.edu

Media play a pivotal role in reporting news of distant conflicts. In doing so, they also construct normal/deviant dichotomies. This study investigates construction of Palestinian political violence in US news media within the second Palestinian intifada. It sheds light on media's role as agents of social control and influence by examining labels on violence committed by various parties and the use of primordial- and instrumental-type explanations of national identity and mobilization, among others. Two key intifada moments were picked: Israeli Prime Minister Sharon's visit to the Jerusalem shrine and the assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Ze'evi. Analysis indicated journalist attachment of terrorism exclusively to Palestinians, undermining Palestinian violence as legitimate resistance means. Also, religious and secular identities were conflated in attempting to identify parties of the conflict, thereby mishandling the primordial paradigm. News media's role in social control and influence is thus undeniable, but the adequacy thereof is a separate question.

Key Words: intifada • Israel • news • Palestine • violence • USA

Foreign policy and the framing of the 2003 Iraq War in elite Swedish and US newspapers
Daniela V. Dimitrova
Iowa State University, USA, DanielaD@iastate.edu

Jesper Strömbäck
Mid Sweden University, Sweden, jesper.stromback@miun.se

This study investigated the framing of the Iraq War in the elite newspapers in Sweden and the USA during the official war period, 20 March—1 May 2003. The content analysis revealed significant cross-cultural differences in the framing of the war in terms of tone, frames and use of sources. The differences in framing were consistent with the characteristics of the national political environment and foreign policy stances in each country.

Key Words: cross-cultural framing of conflict • Iraq War coverage • news framing • Swedish press • US press

The Death of Reporting
Martin Bell
Former BBC war reporter

Martin Bell argues that war reporting as it has been practised from the time of William Howard Russell in the Crimea is no longer possible. He describes this commentary as its obituary. Twenty-first century warfare as conducted in Iraq and Afghanistan offers no foothold for independent and free-ranging journalism. Reporters are driven back into green zones and fortified compounds where they no longer have a function as eyewitnesses. Embedded reporting is so limited in scope that it serves as little more than a recruiting movie. Wars which are fought among the people are no longer reported from among the people. The news agenda has also retreated from the real world into a comfort zone of its own. A cloud of obscurity has settled over the battlefield.

Key Words: Afghanistan • embedded journalism • Iraq • war reporting

Book Reviews

Steven Haines
Review: Babak Bahador The CNN Effect in Action: How the News Media Pushed the West towards War in Kosovo Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. xxii + 235 pp. ISBN 978 1 4039 7519 5

Bryan E. Denham
Review: Bill Moyers Journal Buying the War (Public Broadcasting System, 2007: 90-min documentary)

Sarah Oates
Review: Andrew Hoskins and Ben O'Loughlin Television and Terror: Conflicting Times and the Crisis of News Discourse London: Palgrave/Macmillan (New Security Challenges Series), 2008. 217 pp. ISBN 0 230 00216 1 (hbk), 0 230 00217 X (pbk)

Farida Vis
Review: Henry A. Giroux Stormy Weather: Katrina and the Politics of Disposability Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2006. 160 pp. ISBN 978 1 59451 328 2 (hbk) $75.00, 978 1 59451 329 9 (pbk) $18.95

Richard Lance Keeble
Review: Laura Roselle Media and the Politics of Failure: Great Powers, Communication Strategies and Military Defeats Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. 190 pp. ISBN 13 978 1 4039 7527 6

Jacky Sutton
Review: David Cook and Olivia Allison Understanding and Addressing Suicide Attacks: The Faith and Politics of Martyrdom Operations Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007. 224 pp. ISBN 0275992608 (hbk), £25.95 Zaki Chehab Inside Hamas: The Untold Story of Militants, Martyrs and Spies London: IB Tauris, 2007. 240 pp. ISBN 1845113896 (hbk), £17.99

Andrea Teti
Review: Conference Review: `The Cultural Politics of "Terror" in the Middle East', King's College London, 30 November 2007, funded by the Humanities and Arts Research Centre (HARC)

Neha Sud
Review: François Debrix Tabloid Terror: War, Culture and Geopolitics London: Routledge, 2007. 193 pp. ISBN 13 978 0 415 77291 4 (pbk), 978 0 415 77290 7 (hbk), 978 0 203 94466 0 (electronic)

Editors:
Andrew Hoskins
University of Warwick, UK
Barry Richards
Bournemouth University, UK
Philip Seib
University of Southern California,

Reviews Editor:
Ben O'Loughlin
Royal Holloway, University of London